October, 2016

This week is Halloween, Annika’s now in 8th grade. A memory of mine came to me last night.

8th grade, St. John’s Lutheran, Napa. Class size was 13, 3 boys and 10 girls. Mark Zeller and Sean Scott had never appeared to be of interest to the girls in our class…which should have been good news for me, but since I was introverted and classmates with girls that (in most cases) I had known since Kindergarten, “dating” or having a girlfriend was foreign to me.

Halloween. Friday evening. 1976. School party. Dunking for apples, etc. Scott Young (my best friend, 7th grade) and myself are re-directed outside to the playground by some of the 8th grade girls – Sherri Lahei; Barbara Rose; Julie Greenwalt; a few others – once it was dark.

Spin the bottle (5-6 girls who are ready to explore; they brought a bottle! 2 boys who are clueless), truth or dare. From the start everyone selects dare. Every dare is to kiss so-and-so. While I hadn’t spent one second imagining a kiss with any of these girls, I was enthusiastic. Kissed every girl, numerous times, lips closed, lots of giggling. It was silly yet endearing, in retrospect. While I imagine it had to be somewhat clumsy and awkward, I don’t recall that at all.

My recollection may be off, but I recall riding my bike to school the next day, on a Saturday, going to the playground and trying to make sense of what happened. I didn’t quiet realize it, but I was different now. End of the chapter of complete innocence. I walked around the playground, around the basketball courts. The school which had been my own for 9 years felt different to me, a bit disorientating. But exhilarating.

I ask Annika now and then about boys. I don’t want to pressure her or make fun of her; rather, I want her to feel comfortable talking with me about her romantic feelings. Nothing yet. She is in Catalina this week for school; maybe there is an unused bottle there, being spun…

Whenever I bring the twins to bed, I tell them a story. Fiction on the spot. Sometimes they will provide input, large or small, a community effort. The challenge for me are two: come up with a good story, and don’t fret about reality.

Case in point. Last night the input from the twins was simply “a submarine”. For inspiration I thought of Jacques Cousteau, National Geographic. The characters, as is the case most of the time, would be two young girls. Maybe they make their own submarine? But out of what materials? Do they take it into a pool? The ocean? How do they get it to the ocean? What is their goal?

The questions came up in seconds, the answers took a little longer. Or, shall I say, it took a little longer to realize the questions were unnecessary. Yes, the girls, make their own submarine, but the only details as to materials were two school chairs and a bicycle for propulsion. Of course they take it into the ocean; and the details of how they get it there are irrelevant (“so Nancy and Pamela brought their submarine to the ocean, and climbed in between the crashing of waves”). There is no goal; it’s just simple adventure (they end up at a small island with lizards and birds everywhere, only to realize after lunch that they forgot to anchor their submarine and it started to float away).

When finished, the girls were still wake (often times they fall asleep) and both suggested that this story was one of the best ever. A reminder, that I need continually, is that at this wonderful age it’s not the details that matter.